2. I made one!! Buy yourself the http://www.walmart.com/ip/Tetra-Whis...-1-ct/10291813 air pump. Very quiet, decent price. Airline tubing, an adjustable valve (adjusts flow)... AND aquarium sponge, not kitchen sponge.
Cycle it first, before having them breed. saves you trouble and ammonia problems. use a knife to cut a hole halfway inside the sponge, stick the tubing in, and basically...attach one tube to the valve, another tube to the valve leading to the pump. plug in.

3. I use a cheap hidey hole aquarium ornament. Make sure nothing is sharp on the inside. Or, you can use PVC piping apparently (I haven't).

4. I'm useless for that question =D I think bbs is hatched for when they feed... which is about the time they begin free swimming, or the day after free swimming.

I use a natural method to spawn in a 10g heavy planted soil based full to the top with water and this has worked well for me over the years....any plants will work-but if using a bare bottom method you will want to float the plants and lots of them...either fake or real-with real being the best due to them being able to assist with some of the water quality issues and natural production of microorganisms for free range fry food...
I also like to keep lots of common snails in the tank to help with clean up, infusoria production as well as shrimp to complete my little ecosystem.

With lots and lots of plants they can function as a divider and hiding place of sorts for the female as well-I like to use all the plants for the divider to prevent premature egg drops..

I don't use any added filtration in my spawning tanks other than the plants-but in the fry grow out tanks I usually will have a sponge filter if anything until they are large enough to be in a tank with HOB type filtration-my plants also function as the filtration....I think there may be a DIY on a sponge filter somewhere on the forum....

BBS-for fry-I only feed newly hatched BBS with the yolk sac intact for best nutrition-I usually don't start to feed the fry until they are in the 7-10 day area due to how my systems function-but in regular methods I would look at start to feed the fry once they are free swimming and that is generally around 2-3 days after they hatch...so I would wait to get your BBS hatchery going until at least 24h after they hatch and then have 2 hatcheries going 24h apart...especially if BBS is the only live food you plan to feed...
Unless you have never hatched BBS and then its a good idea to practice and make sure your water will hatch them and the BBs eggs are good.

Good luck and keep us updated on your spawn...sometimes some of this you have just do it...or hands on....it can vary a lot sometimes based on your breeders, setup, supplies on hand...etc......it can be really rewarding-but it can be a bit of work too.....

How do you keep the plants alive then? :S I have 3 different kinds in Kings tank:

Water wisteria
Mint Charlie
Bacopa

And only the first 2 seem to be doing ok.. the Bacopa is turning brown :( On the plus side, Petsmart seems to always have thoes common snails on the plants so I'm sure I will get enough of thoes once I get the plants!

What is the difference between an aquarium spong and a normal one? I've never seen sponges sold at petsmart but I'll give it a look tomorrow when I go for the heater. For the grow out tank, I have the two 10 gallons, I was just going to move some to the other tank once big enough.. so does that mean I actually need 2 sponge filters?

Amonia spikes are what I fear.. even if I didnt use a sponge filter during the spawn process should I still set the tank up now? So the cycle of the plants and everything can grow before hand?

And I should start the bbs hatchery around the time they first hatch correct? Should be easy enough :)

I will do updates after they spawn but I cant garentee pics because my camera cant focus on close up's only long distance pics :( and its a crappy digital camera so I cant get thoes lens extenders for it.. So I would have to wait for the fry to get bigger. Thanks so much for all the help though! I have so many notes now ^_^

An aquarium sponge is made for aquariums. Your run of the mill sponges have chemicals and will kill your fish.

Cycle everything beforehand, even if you don't have a filter in the initial tank (keep up with water changes)... This will help keep ammonia down, and can have the plants flourish better. To keep plants alive you want UV lights. You may want to get 2 sponge filters, just in case. You never know how many you'll get!

Often plant failures are related to the wrong lights and photoperiod-when its not related to non-aquatic plants, improper planting or emersed-vs-submersed growth..you don't need UV lights for plants....

What kind of lights are you using, age of bulbs, kelvin, watts and photoperiod

Having the sponge filter full of beneficial bacteria is what you need if you plan to use one-by running it in a cycled tank for about 6-8 weeks....but with Betta fry since you have to do a lot of water changes anyway for not just ammonia, nitrate, DOC's...but the stunting hormone the fry emit...you should plan to make at least 50% daily water changes once you start to feed the fry and depending on the number of fry-you may need to make 50% twice a day-especially with really large spawns.....

When you use live plants for filtration, divider, hiding place....you need to cram it full to the point the male has trouble getting through them-allowing a small area plant free where you want the nest.

am a breeder as well, but i not the best. i used fake plants (one real) didn't use a sponge filter, conditioned for 1-2 weeks. and kept it warm (i don't have a thermometer suggest to get one if you have the money)

They are brand new just put in about a week ago, as to what the watts are.. I would have to go back to the store and look. They were the 2 dollar ones at walmart. They made the tank pretty warm so I didnt need a heater. Only time I do is when it gets to around 50 at night which doesnt happen often in Florida :)

Not sure what Kelvin and photoperiod is though.. I sure hope Petsmart sells aquarium sponges